Far beyond Taiwan's urban high-rise towers can be seen the mountains which once earned Taiwan the beautiful name Formosa when it was a Dutch colony. The horizon now consists of too many people streaming through too narrow streets and alleys. Perhaps it is not for no reason that a German reporter described Taiwanese people as living in a big pigpen (as if we can be conveniently defined by where we live and what we eat). The red and green lights situated at crossroads are regarded as mere references, rather than regulations. We have here a place which is environmentally chaotic—not to mention the mud slides on the hillsides, which occur with increasing frequency and magnitude. What more can be expected?

Immediately beyond Taiwan's borders lies our long-term hate-love relative. What the Japanese government failed to construct or deconstruct during its fifty-year rule over Taiwan remains with us, in so far as our tug of war with China is concerned. Or, rather, we can rightly say there is really no war, only a tug. The majority of our Taiwanese roots reach across the Strait deep into the soil of the Middle Kingdom. A sneeze there can possibly be reflected as a bad cold here. Having produced an epoch-making impact upon Chinese culture after the fall of the last emperor, the May Fourth Movement has continued to make its presence felt, albeit in the manner of an aftershock. Not a few Chinese scholars understand it as a continuation of westernization of some sort, although how much it has affected the overall structure of the foundation of national consciousness (including both China-Chinese people and Taiwan-Chinese people) remains a matter of debate. Mr. Der and Mr. Sai (democracy and science) either walk hand in hand or far apart from each other. The greatest fear, however, is caused by the tension between Chairman Mao and Commander in Chief Chiang, a long-standing struggle that has yet to see any sign of ending. Is there any unifying meaning to all these existential anxieties constituting the Taiwanese ego?

Lin Yu-tang, the most widely renowned Chinese author next to that of the Little Red Book, astutely remarked that the controlling force in Chinese history was not the warlords but the feminine triad gods of impersonal Fate-Favor-Face. Because Taiwan became a melting pot for the people who migrated from the various provinces of China about fifty years ago, it can be viewed as a microscopic China. Therefore, we can witness a concentrated interplay of these triad gods in the life of Taiwanese people. The Good Earth, as portrayed by Pearl S. Buck, still cries out with much suffering, yet without much real hope of being heard. The Judeo-Christian triad of God-Grace-Glory is missing in our Zen atmosphere, which is inherently composed of a delicate balance of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism. How are we Christians to present the personal fullness of the deity of the bodily Christ, so that it will stand out clearly from the nothingness of Zen? How can we Christians do theology in the chaotic steps of history, which panics every Taiwanese?

James Legge and others have argued among themselves about the appropriateness of the translation of the word God, an argu ment whose echo is heard today in our Chinese Union Bibles. As several trends mentioned above merge in the present Taiwan, the need for dialogue with Chinese culture and its underlying presuppositions has escalated to a critical stage. In retrospect we can reach back over one thousand years to the time when Christianity was first introduced into China, but only enjoyed a very brief life. We should also take into consideration such emergent issues as homosexuality and mercy killing among the Taiwanese/Chinese. We would then be obeying the exhortation of Paul when he said, See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ. For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ, who isthe head over every power and authority. In him you were also circumcised, in the putting off of the sinful nature, not with a circumcision done by the hands of men but with the circumcision done by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead. (Colossians 2:8-12)

Dr. Ben Hsiau, a Taiwan National, is with Community Bible Study International in the United States. He studied at Asbury Theological Seminary, Kentucky, and the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, majoring in Theology and Exegesis.


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